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Topic: My uncle Amos's old Epiphone amp |
David Ball
From:
North Carolina High Country
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Posted 12 Oct 2024 3:14 pm |
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I inherited this amp decades ago, and remember playing through it back in the 60's, but only recently got around to restoring it. It's a 1939/1940 Epiphone Electar Century model--the one that they sort of reissued a few years back.
My grandfather had made some modifications to try to use a non-fieldcoil speaker that basically rendered it useless. It amplified, but was very low volume and distorted.
There aren't any schematics out there for this particular amp, but I was able to reverse engineer it to remove the mods and replaced all the caps and wired it for 3 prong power with no death cap.
The thing sounds absolutely great with a good single coil pickup hollowbody. Haven't yet tried a steel with it. The original Rola field coil speaker is awesome. It uses a pair of 6V6 tubes driven by a 76 triode spitter/driver and a 7C7 loctal (hence 1940 vs 39 probably) pentode preamp stage (wired pentode and not triode). 80 rectifier. It's got a classic Charlie Christian/Billy Byrd kind of tone. I think the pentode input stage has a lot to do with that.
But the coolest part about the amp is that my uncle Amos was a good friend of Merle Travis. Always called Merle "Slim." They worked at the same cigar factory in Evansville Indiana in the 30's. Merle helped him pick this amp out, along with a Gibson L-50 guitar with a Dearmond pickup installed. It sounds better with my Guild Manhattan than it does with the Gretsch. Single coil pickups are definitely what it likes.
Anyway, I can't play like Merle (though I try). But I'm glad to get this old guy back online!
Dave
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David Ball
From:
North Carolina High Country
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Posted 12 Oct 2024 3:32 pm
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As a sidenote--I had just gotten this amp back together and tried out when Helene hit us hard. My music room flooded, and this was the first piece of gear I got upstairs out of harms way! Got everything else out too just in the nick of time. I was going to be seriously ticked if the water destroyed this amp right after I brought it back to life!
Dave |
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Dave Meis
From:
Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA
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Posted 12 Oct 2024 8:17 pm
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Good save!
I hope you're safe and well! |
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 12 Oct 2024 10:08 pm
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What a story! I hope you can recover quickly and completely.
I always liked the way those amps looked.
_________________
Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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